Brand Nubian: One For All and All For One
Social consciousness, the black diaspora and controvertial, charged lyricism blended with pure funk breaks and a creative sampling aesthetic. These were the characteristics of the New York Five Percenters, Brand Nubian and their first album One For All; a document of black music activism and a crate digger’s bible. iCrates untangles the samples and disseminates...
The Specials and Rock Against Racism
Over time the entire body of work of any given musical artist becomes boiled down to a specific purpose; sometimes a specific song. History allows us to look back and classify, often also to simplify in order to better understand. The Specials are a band that time has been kind to; a band whose formation,...
Spirituals on Vinyl
The darkest chapters of a people’s history sometimes evince the size of their spirit. More so when the chapters are recorded not in prose but in verse and song. The spirituals accrued by slaves in bondage acquire this deep significance and have become an essential cultural artefact in American musical history. Considered one of the...
Are You Scared of Revolution? The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron & The Watts Prophets
“Time is running out on lifeless serpents reigning over a living Kingdom”. One of the opening lines of The Last Poets’ debut album accurately articulates the zeitgeist felt by radicals on both ends of the political spectrum circa 1970 in America. Reports of police brutality, race riots and assassinations were flooding the news. Long-time FBI...
Hugh Masekela – Masekela
South African musician Hugh Masekela has been releasing albums of conscientious music since 1962. Of the many socio-political albums he’s released it is his 1968 album simply entitled Masekela that is the most powerful. It is a timeless proclamation about the constant struggles that face most resistance movements. iCrates took a closer look at the messages...
Bigger Than Hip Hop
It is one of those instantly recognizable bass lines. The boom of Dead Prez’ 1999 hit “Hip Hop” still gets parties pumping and heads bobbing in unison all across the Globe today. Add the mantra-like chorus to the mix and you have a timeless hip hop classic which for many provides the only reference point...
Sing It Loud: Jazz and Protest in the Music of Nina Simone & Billie Holiday
Nina Simone and Billie Holiday are two of the greats. Matriarchs in a long line of enlightened performers. They are remembered for the fire in their bellies as much as the warmth in their hearts, and embody the ability female jazz singers’ have to deliver clarity on the social issues peculiar to the black female...
Voguing and The House Ballroom Scene of New York 1976-96 (Soul Jazz Records)
A highly stylized dance initially developed in New York’s ballrooms during the 1960s, Voguing enjoyed a renaissance with the city’s gay black and Hispanic crowd at the beginning of the 1990s. Until now, treatment of Voguing has largely been confined to the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning or more widely through Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ released in...
John & Alice Coltrane – Cosmic Music
John Coltrane (1926-1967) needs little introduction, a revolutionary figure of the avant-garde jazz scene and a damn good saxophonist. The man has been heralded far and wide but the titles of two of his records, Cosmic Music and Interstellar Space, suggest he already had his head above the clouds. In the 1950s, John Coltrane fell...
Spicelab – A Day On Our Planet
Oliver Lieb is responsible for an enormous amount of extremely high quality techno/trance, and his Spicelab album A Day On Our Planet, is up there as one of his best and most ingenious. Released in 1994, a year even before his groundbreaking Rendezvous In Outer Space, this second Spicelab album A Day On Our Planet sounds...
Spinvis: The Dutch Astronaut
His name is Erik de Jong. His name is Spinvis, Dutch for ‘Spiderfish’. This is his alias, his nationally famous one-man band. iCrates takes a look at the life and musical career of Spinvis, the “Dutch Bob Dylan”. At first glance Erik de Jong seems to be quite the ordinary man, aged 50 and living...
King Geedorah – Take Me To Your Leader
Take Me To Your Leader was Daniel Dumille’s first full-length release under his alias “King Geedorah”. The man behind MF Doom based the records eponymous space monster on “King Ghidorah”, the two-tailed, three-headed dragon that terrorizes Earth in the Godzilla films. You should listen to the album for what it is and not expect it...
